To enable myself to produce a music magazine front cover, I studied and researched a broad range of types of music based magazines to give me an idea of what kind of magazine's there are on the market and what sort of magazine I would be interested in creating.
Q magazine is a magazine that appeals to a wide audience of people.The purpose of putting a globally recognised band like 'coldplay' who appeals to a wide audience of people is hopefully to persuade more people to buy the product.
The colours incorporated into the magazine cover don't suggest a specific genre for example; black gloomy colours may appear the colour schemes of rock & roll and heavy metal magazines.
The audience span as i have mentioned is very broad but perhaps young teens and children this magazine wouldn't appeal so much too.
Billboard is an American magazine which is one of the oldest and most trustworthy magazines solely devoted to music.
Billboard is a magazine that typically caters for an older range of perhaps 16 and over however using a young teen icon the producers manage to pull in a broader audience.
Using big icons like Miley Cyrus on Magazine covers encodes a sense of power with the audience and that its a popular, successful magazine to read.
The producers uses rhetorical questions as a subtitle to the core piece which makes the audience feel involved with the magazine. The simplism of the usage of words make it seem somehow more professional.
Q Magazine as mentioned before offer a broad range of massively popular celebrities in hope to bring in a larger audience. Cheryl Cole a famous icon appears on the front cover. This would also appeal to a wide audience as the icon is seen as a 'sex symbol' for male viewers. This attracts both sides of the scale females and males with a broad age target audience. The red bold letters and red lipstick give off that sense of lustfulness and sex appeal. The black and red work very well and compliment each other and come across as being very mature looking.
Smash! Hits is a magazine no longer running in business however for its very long run the magazine and brand catered for the stereotypical average teenage girl.
The bright feminine colours and beauty tips on the page would perhaps make the Smash! Hits stand out to an audience much smaller than other magazines perhaps like; Q, Billboard ect.
The bright colours used on their own 'grab' the audiences attention to give the magazine a closer look.
The main image focused on the front cover is an iconic person who's main audience is young teenagers stereotypically which limits down the audience range.
The magazine '
INDIE' isn't a mainstream magazine and would probably be a lot harder to get hold of an purchase. One of the reasons for that perhaps is it doesn't have a well known celebrity fronting the magazine or a story followed by a wide range of people featured. The colours used aren't very bold and eye catching which doesn't do anything to catch the readers eye and influence them to purchase it.
They haven't included much writing on the front and is kept very basic which keeps it looking very fresh however doesn't give you much ideas of what the magazine will actually contain and if you will find its contents interesting.
I think the audience varies from person to person; you would first of all perhaps be into or interested in a quirky and different 'indie' style. The magazine cover isn't very bright and bold so perhaps doesn't cater for such a young audience. I think the average age too appeal to this magazine would be 16- 30 years of age as the magazine looks quite weird and rebellious in a weird sense which wouldn't perhaps appeal to many adults.
During this section of my AS Media course completing my magazine, the topic has made me think about the Magazine Industry. During my research I soon found that the magazine industry is declining on a broad scale.
